Recently, attention has come to be paid to IC (Integrated Circuit) chips that are capable of contactlessly transferring and receiving information to and from external devices. For example, IC cards having such non-contact IC chips provided in card substrates thereof are widely used in electronic money, season tickets for transit systems, admission cards, and so forth.
Further, it has been proposed to cause such an IC chip to store an ID to thereby use the IC chip for identification and management of a commercial article or the like. A Non-contact IC chip thus used is referred to as an “RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tag”. In general, the RFID tag generates driving power based on radio waves or electromagnetic waves from a reader, and performs wireless communication with the reader, to transmit information, such as an ID stored in a memory of the IC chip, to the reader. Further, examples of the RFID tag include one which is capable of writing information in the memories of the IC chips, and one which is capable of executing processing, such as authentication processing with external devices, using received information or information stored therein.
By the way, many IC cards having non-contact IC chips installed therein are configured such that IC chips and antennas for communication are provided between card substrates made of resin. Further, as an IC card configured as above, to enhance the mechanical strength of the IC card, there has been proposed an IC card which is configured to sandwich both surfaces of the IC chip using a reinforcing member such as metal (see e.g. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-141486). Further, it has been proposed that a reinforcing plate, which opens in portions thereof corresponding to electrodes of an IC chip, is directly joined to a main surface of the IC chip to thereby reduce the thickness of an IC card (see e.g. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-200333). Further, there has been proposed an IC card which has a fiber material provided as a reinforcing material between a module package and a card substrate that have an IC chip and coils installed therein (see e.g. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H10-181261).
On the other hand, in general, RFID tags as well are provided in a form in which an IC chip is integrally modularized e.g. with a communication antenna. Such a RFID tag as well is required to enhance the strength thereof with respect to a bending force and the like. Furthermore, it is designed to attach a RFID tag e.g. to clothing. Such RFID tags are further required to have resistance to liquids or chemicals. To solve these problems, it is proposed to manufacture RFID tags each by laminating reinforcing members and an IC chip one upon another and sealing a module having the IC chip integrated therein with a protective sheet.
However, it takes labor and time to manufacture the RFID tags each having reinforcing members arranged therein and an internal circuit sealed with a protective sheet, which results in an increase in manufacturing costs thereof.
For example, when a RFID tag is made, although a sheet-like substrate itself, which is formed with antenna patterns in advance, can be prepared with such a small thickness that enables the same to be wound around a roll or the like. However, when an IC chip is attached to the sheet-like substrate, and reinforcing members are mounted on the IC chip, both the IC chip and the reinforcing members have large bending resistances, which makes it difficult to cause the sheet-like substrate to be taken up by a roll again. Therefore, for example, a sealing process using a protective sheet is required to be performed by batch processing after the sheet-like substrate is cut in units of one or a plurality of IC chips. As described above, when it is impossible to continuously laminate reinforcing members and protective sheets in a state where a sheet-like substrate is wound around a roll, it is difficult to manufacture a large number of RFID tags at low cost.